rocketry , spaceflight program and ICBMs

[Verr]

not sure if this topic is placed right in the history forum since its more about the current moon-travel program of china.

well to the historical part: how much was the american spaceflight program linked to missile advance in military e.g. for ICBMs?

does the ability to sent satelites into space help you to detect them and shoot them down with rockets on their orbit?
did they test stuff like that?

and another bit-off-question: do you think north koreas rockets tests are some kind of warning to the west hinting at china?
was something like this done in history?

[Magister Militum Flavius Aetius]

The US did a lot of tests of launching missiles to destroy targets in Orbit. Project Orion revealed you could EMP the entire Pacific Ocean doing that.

[Spear Dog]

It is my understanding that Reagan's Star War's program, the Strategic Defense Initiative, went ahead and is at least partially in place - although not "offically", nor under the original designations. I think Obama let the cat out of the bag when he cut funding to part of it.

Any US heavy launch research will inevitably be linked to ICBMs, but an eyeball survey might suggest research these days goes more to drones and cruise missile type systems which allow for more controlled targeting.

ICBMs are intrinsic to the notion of "Mutually assured destruction", and imo NK's missile tests are more about wanting to be considered a player in that game.

[conon394]

and another bit-off-question: do you think north koreas rockets tests are some kind of warning to the west hinting at china?
was something like this done in history?

That is how North Korea wants others to see them but there is a very big gulf between a few crude nuclear tests and on only sort of successful satellite launch and an ICBM. For one thing a Satellite rocket that sits on the pad for days and days before only just not quite doing its mission is not an ICBM. North Korea would need to develop a proper reentry vesicle/ability, and reliable rocket and one that is ready to go not some tinker toy that takes weeks to launch a silo system and viable warhead before you can ever say it has any kind of viable warning beyond scaring China or South Korea

People make fun of Pentagon spending but at the end of the day we often do get what we pay for and North Korea is for from the Ohio class SSBN and its ICBMs that it not even in the same century in reality. Its not really even at 1945 levels.

[Cyclops]

...

well to the historical part: how much was the american spaceflight program linked to missile advance in military e.g. for ICBMs?...

Entirely. IIRC the US forces and NASA worked on a bunch of bad designs and had to go with the captured Nazi tech Saturn project led by Braun (who made the V2's) for a workable unit. Braun was on the nose as a Nazi who used slave labour, but the success of Sputnik made him essential.

For a society with proven engineering and awesome logistical accomplishments the US sure builds crummy space vehicles. They need to build Clarkes Space Elevator to make up for it.

...does the ability to sent satelites into space help you to detect them and shoot them down with rockets on their orbit?
did they test stuff like that?

I am certain there are anti-satelite weapons.

and another bit-off-question: do you think north koreas rockets tests are some kind of warning to the west hinting at china?
was something like this done in history?...

Public weapon tests are political messages. You don't reveal your weapon capablities for fun. Trinity (first nuclear bomb or A bomb test) was secret, Ivy (the first thermonuclear bomb or H bomb test) had a newsreel made.

[Magister Militum Flavius Aetius]

They need to build Clarkes Space Elevator to make up for it.

NASA not only says it's technologically viable by 2017, they plan to have one finished by the end of the century.

[Col. Tartleton]

It's NASA, they're probably lying. Where's our Mars Mission Bro? Lets at least get some safe moon landings with modern computers. Build a moon base, leave some people up there. See if they can not die/kill each other/keep their together for a few years and if that test succeeds, we send completely different people to Mars and compare the murder rates.

Anyhow my Grandpa was an engineer on the laser end of missile defense. Now its far more practical than it was then. Basically the engineers, he included told the government folks it couldn't be done at the time, but the plans went forward and much money was spent and earned. But now we've got laser weapons. Worth.

Pretty much anything that isn't completely retarded or physics breaking will work eventually.

[Condottiere 40K]

1. You are't allowed to militarize (place weapons in orbit) space.

2. Testing out your latest anti-satellite missile annoys everyone, since you've just scattered more debris everywhere.

3. North Korea's test launch of rockets is their gentle reminder that they want their allowance.

[Spear Dog]

China: (note the dates)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Ch...e_missile_test

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/world/2...t_10121179.htm

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/...94E07D20130515

What you're allowed to do, what you can do, and what you do, are three different creatures.

I've seen reports that the US navy has a working model rail gun that they have already test fired, with that type of weapon you could snipe satellites from land based facilities at your leisure.

http://www.livescience.com/45025-nav...un-at-sea.html

[conon394]

Entirely. IIRC the US forces and NASA worked on a bunch of bad designs and had to go with the captured Nazi tech Saturn project led by Braun (who made the V2's) for a workable unit. Braun was on the nose as a Nazi who used slave labour, but the success of Sputnik made him essential.

Braun was important but not that vital the US had a couple different developmental lines in play and sputnik simply put him in the spotlight. But as he himself admitted had the US funded Goddard (or if MIT was not full of idiots) we would never have needed the Nazi's

For a society with proven engineering and awesome logistical accomplishments the US sure builds crummy space vehicles. They need to build Clarkes Space Elevator to make up for it.

That's a bit harsh. Nobody else has an X-37 and we got more toys wandering around the solar system than most. Even the Russian engine ban seems unlikely to be much of an issue Either Space X will back their talk with walk or we could buy French why we go back to making our own stuff.

[Condottiere 40K]

Or we can get the Chinese to launch them; they seem to be doing well, and I'll bet they'll even offer a discount.

[conon394]

Or we can get the Chinese to launch them; they seem to be doing well, and I'll bet they'll even offer a discount.

I really doubt the Pentagon or CIA etc would trust China with their toys. US systems work fine the only issues with boosters are where decided to get them.

[Cyclops]

Braun was important but not that vital the US had a couple different developmental lines in play and sputnik simply put him in the spotlight. But as he himself admitted had the US funded Goddard (or if MIT was not full of idiots) we would never have needed the Nazi's

Look hats pretty much my point. For whatever reason the US couldn't choose a workable system until the Russians went past them, then they chose the Nazi.

That's a bit harsh. Nobody else has an X-37 and we got more toys wandering around the solar system than most. Even the Russian engine ban seems unlikely to be much of an issue Either Space X will back their talk with walk or we could buy French why we go back to making our own stuff.

This is the extraordinary thing: the US is the biggest consumer of rockets (both public and private sector) with easily the largest government space program (two fifths of the total public spend) and I'm guessing a private/public combined spend on aeronautics/rocket tech equalling the rest of the world combined. Meanwhile they are using Russian (!) and French rockets to get orbital. For a practical logistic-capable nation with an historically intense interest in the area the US has botched their space investment.

Space elevator and railgun-armed anti-Meteor defense system in ten years or fail.

[conon394]

This is the extraordinary thing: the US is the biggest consumer of rockets (both public and private sector) with easily the largest government space program (two fifths of the total public spend) and I'm guessing a private/public combined spend on aeronautics/rocket tech equalling the rest of the world combined. Meanwhile they are using Russian (!) and French rockets to get orbital. For a practical logistic-capable nation with an historically intense interest in the area the US has botched their space investment.

I'm not so sure. It depends on the scorecard you pick.

We do better and more than most on probes and robot exploration.

Given we have the X-37 and also that Boeing says it can scale it up to crew capacity we have the only proven robotic or potential manned shuttle type stuff - and the only ones with a a data track record in that area.

The overall Delta and Atlas Rockets are solid. It seems to me the choice of using some Russian boosters was political post cold war decision that was likely pushed by DC. Don't forget at the time gas and oil was cheep the USSR was disintegrating and the US wanted Russian engineers and scientists to stay home and not drift off to Iran or North Korea etc. Putin can play games now but given how much of his budget is based on petroleum and natural gas - go back to 1990 prices and well its not nice picture for Russia.

Space X really seems to be working and their pod has a window - even the robotic one which kinda suggests they are too far out of line in challenging the Lockheed Boeing tag team in that they really can do basic human loft/reentry/orbit - which is all anyone else can do.

I not sure I see a ton of value in the ISS but we did manage it and the Skylab before which certainly provides with the most amount of people alive who have experience do crap in space. Russia is close but getting rusty and their infrastructure is scattered all over the old USSR and tiffs with Ukraine might be a problem. The EU has a nice program and that was kind of my point in that the US might have to scramble to deal with no new Russian hardware but that's the nice thing about friends - we could use the proven French system for NASA type stuff while Space X proves out and Boeing/Lockheed make their own replacement booster.

[Condottiere 40K]

Having people in space is a PR exercise, and helps to keep space exploration in the tax payer's mind.

The ISS seems to be NASA treading water, until they can get the money to do something more interesting.

[Verr]

Having people in space is a PR exercise, and helps to keep space exploration in the tax payer's mind.

The ISS seems to be NASA treading water, until they can get the money to do something more interesting.

i disagree . the abiltiy to sent satelites into space effectively is vital when it comes down to a satelite-race:
are we faster lifting them up or are they faster finding and downing them.

[Cyclops]

There's a very strong military/intelligence aspect to space programs. I think the US probably has the "cleanest" space program in this regard in that there's a heap of commercial launches and NASA does some "pure science" so as to sell space expenditure to the people. Putin has less voters to please so his rockets can be more military and spying.

I suspect (just blowing smoke here) the military side of US space programs sees NASA as window dressing so they don't always get the cool toys. Nevertheless as Conon points out they still come up with really cool toys anyway.

Maybe the US is not publishing its secrets by putting on big public launches of new tech? They'd be pretty confident of world leadership atm, so the knee jerk space race efforts of the 60's are uneccesary. Perhaps we'll find out about the Space Elevator when Obama delivers his fourth Inauguration speech from on top of it (in an encounter suit).

[Condottiere 40K]

Military/intelligence satellite programmes will always find funding, if the Pentagon/NSA/CIA mark the matter as critical enough, the civilian side of it has to fight to even maintain it's budget.

[brandbll]

Braun was important but not that vital the US had a couple different developmental lines in play and sputnik simply put him in the spotlight. But as he himself admitted had the US funded Goddard (or if MIT was not full of idiots) we would never have needed the Nazi's



That's a bit harsh. Nobody else has an X-37 and we got more toys wandering around the solar system than most. Even the Russian engine ban seems unlikely to be much of an issue Either Space X will back their talk with walk or we could buy French why we go back to making our own stuff.

More toys wandering the solar system? How about toys wandering OUTSIDE the solar system? Because there is one and only one, and it was made right here in the US.

A bit harsh would be an understatement. The US builds AWESOME space vehicles. Currently we have two of them driving around on Mars. The skycrane landing technology created for Curiosity was pure genius. We launched a rocket 140 million miles from Earth and landed a car sized rover within two football fields of it's exact destination. Look at the MER program. Oppurtunity has been driving around on Mars for ten years now! I suggest the naysayers go ask the Russians how well their past couple Mars missions have gone. Matter of fact, go ask them how well their past couple satelite launchs have gone. They've been banned from one facility for their latest failure. Or maybe follow the tweets of China's Lunar robitc rover, see how well that went.

Yeah, we use some Russian and French rocket engines, big deal. Do you know how many countries have hopped aboard the the space shuttle? Or used our section of the ISS? We could make those engines ourselves, but in the spirit of diplomacy and being cost effective; we import them. One of the reasons these private enterprises are in the mix is because of the savings they offer. As to why we don't buy stuff from China; China just gets hand me down tech from the Russians. So if we want Russian hand me down tech we can go directly to the source instead of gettting it from China.

Running the Space Shuttle as a ferry to the ISS was ing expensive, really expensive. And the vehicle itself was a very complicated one that really wasn't worth the risk for such missions. And even with it's failures, the Shuttle was an engineering marvel. Personally, i'm glad we stopped sinking money into that floating lemon, the ISS. Bigelow is the future on that front and they are simply waiting on Space X which is only a few years out from taking on manned missions. Am i disappointed that we have been taking time off in our manned missions? Of course. But we aren't just sitting on our lazy duffs not doing anything. We are the foremost pioneers of the human race when it comes to space exploration. In the next two years we'll have the first spacecraft rendezvous with both Pluto and Ceres which we don't even have a decent picture of either of them. We have another that will arrive at Jupiter in that time. What's the rest of the worlds big plan during these next couple of years? We know Russia's big plan is to tear apart the ISS and take their modules and build elsewhere. Good luck with that. Once people start looking into Bigelow and actually see it perform that new Russian station will look like an outdated POS.

And all this and i didn't even mention programs like Apollo, Hubble, Mariner, Pioneer, the other Voyager, MESSENGER, Cassini, MRO, and on and on. If the US makes crummy space vehicles then the rest of the world is making absolute ....

[Sphere]

Gemini was nothing more than an Atlas(iirc) ICBM with a manned pod instead of a warhead. Likewise, if memory serves, sputnik was put into orbit with a modified ICBM. So early on both the soviet and US space programs did nothing other than tag along on ICBM development.

However, eventually doing something interesting like getting to the moon would require a much larger payloads/rockets, while conversely fitting ICBM's into the new subs was all the rage and required smaller warheads/rockets. So there became an inevitable split. Big rockets to reach the moon (Apollo etc) small rockets to put on subs (Polaris etc).

Nowadays, SALT I (again from memory) restricts ICBM design to ballistic (i.e. sub-orbital) paths, so that they cannot actually reach orbit.